The move was not seen as surprising, as \”Star Wars\” games have been suffering of late from either low critical scores, disappointing sales, or both. The last high-profile console launch for core gamers was \”The Force Unleashed II\” in 2010, which garnered Metacritic scores in the low \’60s. A \”Star Wars\” game for the Xbox Kinect motion sensor platform scored only 55 last year with Metacritic.

But the most recent high-profile flub came from \”Star Wars: The Old Republic.\” Designed as a massive multi-player, or MMO, offering for the PC, this game was intended to challenge the popular \”World of Warcraft\” in the lucrative genre of subscription-based MMOs. Electronic Arts
and its BioWare division are believed to have sunk hundreds of millions into the development of the game, only to see it fail to garner a strong player base. EA switched the game to a free-to-play model last year, and the failure is believed to have figured into the surprise departure of CEO John Riccitiello last month.

The overall videogame environment has also gotten more challenging for studios still designed for high-cost console games. Despite the expected release this fall of the PlayStation 4 and a new Xbox, game makers are still challenged by a world full of smartphones, tablets and free games that are stepping up their quality to console levels.

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